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Ciboski: Constitution is Still Necessary for Today

whitehouse.gov

When campaigning for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter said, “All I want  . . . is to have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.” How good would that government be?    

Unfortunately, many of the qualities President Carter mentioned are not reflected in the behavior of politicians and citizens. Many citizens may not like who you are, what you believe, and the kind of public policies you want to have. This is why government is needed to settle disputes and disagreements, hopefully peacefully, among the citizenry.

James Madison, the “father” of our Constitution, said more than 200 years ago that if all men were angels, there would be no need for government. The Founding Fathers and political philosophers recognized that since human beings are by nature selfish and greedy, they will seek to get and to hold what they can for as long as possible. Our Founders were aware of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English political philosopher who said that life without government would be a “war of all against all” and that life would be “nasty, brutish, and short.” Our Founding Fathers then set up a system of government to check human tendencies of greed and selfishness and to channel the effects of these in a way that would be least harmful to the body politic. 

Government helps to preserve the basic fabric of our society. Government protects citizens from unlawful activity, regulates social and economic relationships, provides many different services—including roads, schools, universities, food for the hungry and starving, medical care, financial assistance to the elderly and impoverished, and provides defense of the country against foreign aggression. 

I argue that because human beings are by nature selfish and greedy, the Constitution created in Philadelphia in 1787 is still valid and necessary for today. 

Dr. Ken Ciboski is an associate professor emeritus of political science at Wichita State University.